It is a common practice for insurance companies to contact treating physicians with multiple requests for patient notes, forms, and questionnaires. It can become quite harassing to a busy physician and it makes sense the docs get tired and frustrated with sending records on multiple occasions.
While doctors have the right to charge for their services, they rarely do. I’ve never really understood that other than the fact that treating physicians try to save their patients money, when that doesn’t have anything to do with it, really.
Physicians themselves estimate they spend as much as 30% of their time filling out forms for various agencies including private disability insurance. In providing paperwork, physicians use their own resources such as copy machines, computers and facilities. Then, there is the cost of employee time spent in chasing down the records and actually sending them. Of course, there is also the physician’s time in filling out forms and questionnaires, which is unpaid time for most.
The process is very simple. If insureds are bringing forms for an update it is their responsibility to pay. However, IF the insurance company sends forms and questionnaires directly to physicians’ offices, then the physician can invoice for costs incurred in providing the requested paperwork. I have always recommended between $100-$200 for each request.
Invoicing insurance companies for resources and time spent DISCOURAGES frequent requests; therefore, physicians are actually helping themselves by discouraging insurance companies from requesting records over and over again.
Again, I’ve found that when I mention charging insurance companies to physicians I find out they didn’t know they could charge for their services. Many physicians who DO charge to send records won’t actually send the records until they get paid, another good idea.
One of the best ways for doctors to control insurers’ requests is to charge each time for their services and use of resources. It isn’t cheap to photocopy records these days, or have an office RN use time to burn a CD. My recommendation is to let your doctor know that they can invoice insurance companies when they receive requests for patient notes and completed forms.
The best way to stop an insurance company from records abuse is to hit them hard in the wallet. Please speak with your treating physicians directly and let them know it is OK to invoice insurers when they receive records requests directly from them. Nip the harassing records requests in the bud by asking your physicians to invoice for their time and resources.
